3 reasons to watch your feedback

Machine monitoring enables workers to measure their activity and record the performance of their machines. Photo courtesy of FreePoint Technologies.

Much like how active individuals wear a Fitbit® or smartwatch to track their movements, machine monitoring enables shop floor employees to measure their activity and record the performance of their machines.

The information collected from the machines is used to reduce setup time, limit downtime, and improve uptime. The data can be stored either on a server of the individual company or accessed through the cloud. It then can be displayed throughout a manufacturing facility on monitors, cellphones, and tablets.

Manufacturers using machine monitoring are reaping benefits such as improved productivity and efficiency. The following are three benefits of using machine monitoring to track the performance of your equipment.

1. Reduced Downtime

Every manufacturing plant wants to run its operations as lean and efficiently as possible, and one of the largest obstacles to overcome is machine downtime.

For most manufacturers, downtime is the single largest source of lost production time. Nothing is more frustrating for a supervisor or plant manager than seeing an idle machine. With machine monitoring enabled, a couple things occur that help reduce potential downtime.

First, managers are notified as soon as machines goes down. This notification can be sent by either an email or a text alert. From there they have the ability to investigate the issue, find out what the problem is, and offer a solution. Just this simple alert can already have a huge impact on understanding how often a machine goes down and what happened to cause it. A manufacturer recently mentioned that before his company implemented machine monitoring, it had no idea how long machines were down. Now that they have implemented software, they can respond more quickly to the issue and find the root of the problem. This has saved the company thousands of dollars in reduced downtime.

Second, machine monitoring tracks the history of downtime. This gives operators and supervisors the ability to study the data and find trends and outliers. This information then can be used to prevent the same problems from happening in the future.

2. Engaged Employees

When employees are engaged at work, they bring a passion and interest to their job, which leads to increased production, lower employee turnover, and more creativity and innovation. Machine monitoring enables that type of engagement when it is properly implemented in the following ways:

- Accountability. When an employee’s production is being tracked and recorded, there is a clear sense of accountability for their work. Creating accountable employees delivers numerous benefits to the company.

- Gamification. Gamification is the process of applying and integrating elements of game mechanics to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty. Gamification takes the data-driven techniques that game designers use to engage players and applies them to non-game experiences to motivate actions that add value to your business. Machine monitoring enables that type of engagement with its ability to keep scores, track progress, and display user statistics.

- Measuring Performance. Employees know that they are being measured or evaluated, however, many aren’t aware of how they are doing, as perceived by their supervisors. With the help of machine monitoring, operators are given a consistent measurement of their performance that they are able to see every day. With machine monitoring software, operators are empowered and engaged when they are able to view their performance metrics in a real-time feed.

3. Better Decision Making

With the ability to collect and analyze data, share reports, and display information in real time, machine monitoring helps companies make more informed decisions on a daily basis. In addition, managers can take advantage of historical reporting, which is a key feature of machine monitoring. Through robust reporting and analytics, the managerial division can study long-term effects and take well-informed steps for improving their business. The data collected can be used for the following:

• Quote jobs
• Purchase new machinery
• Hire employees
• Train staff

Machine-to-machine communication is a key driver of Industry 4.0, and the benefits of implementing a machine monitoring system can be immense. From improving shop efficiency to increasing employee engagement, monitoring your equipment can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line.